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Consumer willingness to accept alternative meat products has been widely explored. However, few studies have explored the key factors driving and inhibiting willingness to try, buy and pay a price premium for plant-based proteins, fungal-based proteins and cultured muscle tissue. Therefore, the present study is dedicated to this research gap and proposes a model that combines driving and inhibiting factors such as food neophobia, food technology neophobia, the environmental and specific benefits of alternative meat products as well as intrinsic attributes of meat such as taste, texture and smell. Partial least squares structural equation modeling shows that the largest drivers of consumer willingness to consume meat substitute are their perceived suitability (specific benefits) and environmental impact. Conversely, the biggest inhibitors to consumption were the nutritional importance of meat, the importance of meat taste, texture, and smell, and food neophobia and food technology neophobia. How the drivers and inhibitors varied between plant-based, fungal-based, and cultured muscle tissue are discussed and implications for industry leaders and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edible microcarriers are essential for developing cell-based meat in large-scale cell cultures. As they are required to be embedded in the final products, the microcarriers should be edible, biocompatible, cost-effective, and pathogen-free. The invention of edible animal-free microcarriers would be a breakthrough for cell-based meat culture. We reviewed the fabrication techniques and the materials of microcarriers, and found that plant proteins, having diverse structures and composition, could possess the active domains that are hypnotized to replace the animal-based extracellular matrix (ECM) for meat culture applications. In addition, the bioactive peptides in plants have been reviewed and most of them were resulted from enzyme hydrolysis. Therefore, plant proteins with rich bioactive peptides have the potential in the development microcarriers. Our work provided some new trains of thought for developing plant-based biomaterials as ECM materials and advances the fabrication of microcarriers for meat culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The major societal challenges of climate change and animal welfare call for novel solutions to produce food. Cultivated meat may represent one of such solutions and research is emerging to understand its implications for food consumption. However, to date research has excluded the sector of foodservice provision as part of the wider tourism and hospitality industry from analysis. The current conceptual paper addresses this critical gap in knowledge by introducing cultivated meat to the context of food consumption outside the home. The paper elaborates upon the implications of cultivated meat for global foodservice provision and outlines an agenda for future research. This agenda considers the interests of multiple stakeholders, including developers/manufacturers of cultivated meat, foodservice providers, consumers, policymakers, and digital technology providers to highlight research avenues that warrant in-depth empirical investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe cultured meat technology has developed rapidly in recent years, but there are still many technical challenges that hinder the large-scale production and commercialization of cultured meat. Firstly, it is necessary to lay the foundation for cultured meat production by obtaining seed cells and maintaining stable cell functions. Next, technologies such as bioreactors are used to expand the scale of cell culture, and three-dimensional culture technologies such as scaffold culture or 3D printing are used to construct the three-dimensional structure of cultured meat. At the same time, it can reduce production costs by developing serum-free medium suitable for cultured meat. Finally, the edible quality of cultured meat is improved by evaluating food safety and sensory flavor, and combining ethical and consumer acceptability issues. Therefore, this review fully demonstrates the current development status and existing technical challenges of the cultured meat production technology with regard to the key points described above, in order to provide research ideas for the industrial production of cultured meat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The food industry has recently been under unprecedented pressure due to major global challenges, such as climate change, exponential increase in world population and urbanization, and the worldwide spread of new diseases and pandemics, such as the COVID-19. The fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) has been gaining momentum since 2015 and has revolutionized the way in which food is produced, transported, stored, perceived, and consumed worldwide, leading to the emergence of new food trends. After reviewing Industry 4.0 technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence, smart sensors, robotics, blockchain, and the Internet of Things) in Part I of this work (Hassoun, Aït-Kaddour, et al. 2022. The fourth industrial revolution in the food industry—Part I: Industry 4.0 technologies. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 1–17.), this complimentary review will focus on emerging food trends (such as fortified and functional foods, additive manufacturing technologies, cultured meat, precision fermentation, and personalized food) and their connection with Industry 4.0 innovations. Implementation of new food trends has been associated with recent advances in Industry 4.0 technologies, enabling a range of new possibilities. The results show several positive food trends that reflect increased awareness of food chain actors of the food-related health and environmental impacts of food systems. Emergence of other food trends and higher consumer interest and engagement in the transition toward sustainable food development and innovative green strategies are expected in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certain companies in the rapidly expanding cultured meat space claim that cultured meat is exactly the same in taste, flavour and nutrition as traditional meat, but without the need for animal slaughter, and bringing benefits for human health and the environment. It is important to point out that cultured meat is still in the early phases of development and, in many cases, the claims are based on assumptions rather than facts. In this work, we outline several knowledge gaps, mainly based on technical issues, with repercussions related to the possible benefits as well as economic and regulatory challenges. Cultured meat made entirely of cultured cells does not yet exist Cultured meat production still faces several hurdles including the omission of animal-derived components and economic viability A lack of transparent production methods limits the evaluation of product characteristics and environmental impact [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultured meat (CM) has emerged as a breakthrough technology, which has the potential to minimise future negative impacts associated with the rapidly growing world population; such as serious environmental, sustainability, global public health, and animal welfare concerns. Recently numerous researchers in academia and companies have been putting significant efforts into scientific and translational development in this field. Since various pillars of CM manufacturing hold substantial translational potential, there has been a steady interest in filing patent applications globally in the past decade. For the first time, we have performed a patentometric analysis for cultured meat by highlighting the current patents landscape, determining prolific organisations and geographical locations active in the area, and identifying the overall outlook for the field. In total, > 190 patents published in the English language were collected from 1997 to 2020 for the analysis. Relevant data were extracted from the patents, including technology focus, country of origin, assignees, priority date, cooperative patent classification (CPC) code, to analyse the current patent landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narratives of cellular agriculture, or food technologies using cell cultivation to produce agricultural products such as cultured meat, promise sustainable, ethical alternatives as well as solutions to global food challenges. Although cultured meat is unavailable to consumers, people have formed opinions about it on the basis of media coverage. Drawing on studies of the meaning system of food and the media publicity surrounding cultured meat, the aim is to analyze the emerging meanings of cultured meat in Finnish online news comments (n = 662). The comments were examined using qualitative content analysis and the results were utilized to construct an emerging meaning system for cultured meat. The results indicate that this system draws from nine themes and three aggregate categories, based on the following questions: Why is cultured meat necessary (environmental, animal wellbeing and healthiness considerations)? What are the anticipated product characteristics (naturalness, potential risks and sensory qualities)? How is cultured meat expected to influence societies (the role of actors, decision-making and inequities caused by cultured meat)? The uncertainties of these issues have led to conflicting interpretations, which prevent the achievement of a shared definition of cultured meat and complicate the establishment of cultured meat as an accepted food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In vitro cultured meat is an emerging area of research focus with an innovative approach through tissue engineering (i.e., cellular engineering) to meet the global food demand. The manufacturing of lab-cultivated meat is an innovative business that alleviates life-threatening environmental issues concerning public health and animal well-being on the global platform. There has been a noteworthy advancement in cultivating artificial meat, but still, there are numerous challenges that impede the swift headway of lab-grown meat production at a commercially large scale. In this review, we focus on the manufacturing of edible scaffolds for cultured meat production. In brief, first an introduction to cultivating artificial meat and its current scenario in the market is provided. Further, a discussion on the understanding of composition, cellular, and molecular communications in muscle tissue is presented, which are vital to scaling up the production of lab-grown meat. In continuation, the major components (e.g., cells, biomaterial scaffolds, and their manufacturing technologies, media, and potential bioreactors) for cultured meat production are conferred followed by a comprehensive discussion on the most recent advances in lab-cultured meat. Finally, existing challenges and opportunities including future research perspectives for scaling-up cultured meat production are discussed with conclusive interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of meat using animal stem cell-derived muscle tissue might conceivably do away with the need to sacrifice animals. The creation of "cultured," "synthetic," or "in vitro" meat has the potential to produce meat with distinct qualities more quickly and efficiently than normal meat. Although the process of growing muscle tissues in culture from stem cells has been known for a very long time, it has not yet been perfected for the production of cultured meat products for sale. Conditions for applying the technology, which is currently in its infancy, include a phenomenally high level of consumer acceptability and the development of commercially feasible large-scale production techniques. If the meat produced in vitro has physical traits that are identical to those of traditional meat in terms of color, flavor, aroma, consistency, and deliciousness, then it might be realistically viable. Higher the viability of meat production in vitro, the issues including searching for a good stem cell source and talking about the challenges faced throughout the expansion of cultured meat must be resolved. This review highlights the benefits and advancement of cultured meat, highlights its connection problems, and offers prospective solutions for production-related problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cellular agriculture is a nascent technology that allows meat and other agricultural products to be cultured from cells in a bioreactor rather than harvested from livestock on a farm. It is an important, and perhaps revolutionary, technology that presents opportunities to improve animal welfare, enhance human health, and decrease the environmental footprint of meat production. At the same time, it is not without challenges. In particular, because the technology largely replaces biological systems with chemical and mechanical ones, it has the potential to increase industrial energy consumption and, consequently, greenhouse gas emissions. Realizing positive outcomes on all fronts will require technologists, policy makers, and individual consumers to understand this technology and make wise, well-informed decisions as it is developed. If monitored and managed appropriately, cellular agriculture could allow humans to produce more food on less land than ever before while simultaneously mitigating other environmental problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The cultured meat market has been growing at an accelerated space since the first creation of cultured meat burger back in 2013. Substantial efforts have been made to reduce costs by eliminating serum in growth media and improving process efficiency by employing bioreactors. In parallel, efforts are also being made on scaffolding innovations to offer better cells proliferation, differentiation and tissue development. So far, scaffolds used in cultured meat research are predominantly collagen and gelatin, which are animal-derived. To align with cell-based meat vision i.e. environment conservation and animal welfare, plant-derived biomaterials for scaffolding are being intensively explored. This paper reviews and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of scaffold materials and potential scaffolding related to scale-up solution for the production of cultured meat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultured meat is a novel technology that uses tissue engineering to expand cells taken from animals to grow muscle for consumption as food. Those supporting the technology anticipate it could radically disrupt livestock farming with, they propose, significant benefits for the environment, human health, and animal wellbeing. This paper examines the emergence of this sector through the prism of one of the leading companies – Memphis Meats – in particular focusing upon their online recruitment activity in online videos. Founded in 2015, by 2020 they had announced investment of over $160 m to build a pilot-plant and recruit staff to bring cultured meat closer to commercialization. This paper argues the company's recruitment videos work to enact what I term "producibility", a concept aligned to existing work on "edibility", that emphasizes the process of becoming that foodstuff (included novel foodstuffs) undergo. I deploy existing theoretical work on multiple categories of futures – big/little, individual/institutional/field – to analyze Memphis Meats' online recruitment activity. I argue that, by entangling science and food futures, the company's videos work to assert the status and politics of cultured meat, render it producible and edible, and articulate a novel and transformative food-professional identity: the cultured meat producer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three-dimensional (3D) printing is a fast-developing digital technology with colossal market scope in food and nutrition technology, providing a platform for establishing unique food products with enhanced sensory and nutritional value for a particular end-user. Cultured meat is the concept of producing meat sustainably in laboratory conditions without the sacrifice of animal life and the excessive use of antibiotics. 3D printing could offer unique solutions for the vital issues of cultured meat production; particularly on regulating the protein, fat, and other nutritional content, along with providing realistic texture. This review highlights the immense benefits of 3D printing technology for the scalable and reproducible production of cultured meat products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animal-free animal food products, such as lab-grown meat and synthesized milk, are on the cusp of appearing in the supermarket. With the network of techno-science startups and university laboratories with venture capital, research grants, and donations flowing into them, the transition from techno-fantasy to actually existing industry could occur in the next few years. But the emerging animal-free food industry is a site of social and economic experimentation beyond what is occurring in the laboratory. A particular ethical and moral claim is at the center of this industry-in-potential, with it offering a food future free from the environmental degradation and animal cruelty of existing animal agriculture-led food chains, and it is around this claim that experiments with the construction of value are occurring. Drawing on assemblage theory, we argue that practices associated with things like veganism and beneficent techno-scientific research emerge from existing assemblages, including agrifood production networks, and get arranged and deployed in ways that are potentially economically productive in the making of this industry. This demonstrates how ethics are not just something folded back through the production process from the consumption end but are at the heart of how value is formed within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3D printing technologies are beginning to be employed to fabricate new food products. One of the more unusual and potentially controversial adoptions of this novel food technology involves the use of laboratory-cultured meat or insect-based ingredients to support ethical consumption, food security, and environmental sustainability initiatives. In this article, we discuss findings from our study involving an online discussion group with Australian participants concerning their attitudes to a novel technology that combined new food processing and presentation devices (the 3D printer) with a range of ingredients. The participants recognized the potential benefits of insect- and cultured-meat-based printed food for society. However, their own priorities for food consumption choices centered more on the qualities of health, taste, and naturalness. We found that overall, few participants articulated interest in or support for consuming or serving 3D-printed food products made from cultured meat or insects. Most expressed their disquiet about the degree of processing cultured meat undergoes. It was considered to be "unnatural," and therefore not fresh, potentially harmful, lacking taste or not nutritious. Most of the participants also expressed antipathy towards the idea of eating printed products containing insects. While such products were considered more "natural" and nutritious than cultured meat, the idea of eating insects was predominantly greeted with disgust. As these findings suggest, plans to use 3D printing technologies to render ingredients such as cultured meat and insects more acceptable and appealing to consumers in countries like Australia have major cultural barriers to overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In vitromeat (IVM), also known as cultured meat, involves growing cells into muscle tissue to be eaten as food. The technology had its most high-profile moment in 2013 when a cultured burger was cooked and tasted in a press conference. Images of the burger featured in the international media and were circulated across the Internet. These images—literally marks on a two-dimensional surface—do important work in establishing what IVM is and what it can do. A combination of visual semiotics and narrative analysis shows that images of IVM afford readings of their story that are co-created by the viewer. Before the cultured burger, during 2011, images of IVM fell into four distinct categories: cell images, tissue images, flowcharts, and meat in a dish images. The narrative infrastructure of each image type affords different interpretations of what IVM can accomplish and what it is. The 2013 cultured burger images both draw upon and depart from these image types in an attempt to present IVM as a normal food stuff, and as ‘matter in place’ when placed on the plate. The analysis of individual images and the collection of images about a certain object or subject—known as the imagescape—is a productive approach to understanding the ontology and promise of IVM and is applicable to other areas of social life. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cultured meat production is an innovative and emerging process to produce animal meat in laboratories, using tissue-engineering techniques. This novel approach to produce meat involves in vitro culture of the animal muscle tissues rather than rearing whole animals to obtain animal flesh for consumption. Conventional meat production results in several adverse consequences such as poor nutritional value of meat, food-borne diseases, depletion of environmental resources, pollution etc., associated with animal slaughter. Cultured meat, on the other hand, is essentially an animal-free harvest produced in controlled conditions. Cultured meat can provide healthier, safer, and disease-free meat to consumers, as well as mitigate the negative environmental effects associated with traditional meat production. Academically, this new method is considered adequately efficient to supply meat and meat products to consumers. However, in vitro cultured meat production is still in the early stages of development and requires in-depth research and advanced technical skills for optimized production and commercialization. This review focuses on the history and development of cultured meat production, with insights on the advantages, consequences, and potential of animal-free meat harvest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]